Been a while since I had the chance to start a topic on here... so I figured it was about time I did:

I'm not really one to second guess myself much, but in the interest of not becoming an intolerable human being, I try to gather some feedback from time to time when I feel I may learn from the process and somehow do 'better next time'.

Last year, I founded my own C-corp and went full-time. Things have been doing amazingly well since, for which I feel blessed and am very thankful. We've had amazing projects, and we're really getting traction. Suffice it to say that, as far as the 'indie scene' is concerned, we're probably in the top 20-30% right now (studios that actually have a change to survive more than 5 years). We make our own games, and we work with aspiring indies that want to get their games on the market and are not sure where to start. I know how that sounds, but you'd be surprised by the amount of dedicated individuals that turn out to be much MUCH more than the 'idea guys', and what they can bring to the table.

That being said, there's a recurring problem I've come across the past... (25 years?) that's refusing to go away, and I know it's a broken record to a lot of people around here. Let me first say that I am not against hobby rev-share projects. I have (and had) my own too. That's fine. What I am deliberately opposed to is people taking their hobby rev-share projects so seriously they feel everyone should agree to these terms. You know, people with a day job that are not taking any significant risk, but somehow expect you/me to. Most times, I just ignore them, as I find it better to do so than to jump in an argument, but today was the 'one-too-many' and I felt like venting (the canadian way, so no cursing!).

Here's what this individual actually sent:

This is the integral transcript, so apologies for the typos and lack of opening or closure... (the original post didn't have any bold).

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I am read through your post and I understand that you don't want to get in to any kind of revenue sharing type of project.

I don't have any other way to lead in to this but, look, I have a couple games I am trying to turn in to profit. One is essentially a board game I made for my kids, and it would be really cool if it was made in to a mobile game. Its simple, fun, already has multiple boards, rules made out, cards, everything is made for a physical play version, but I would like to sell it on mobile platforms... I've already called around places to see if I could find a company to develop it for me, but I don't have $10000 to spend on this. I understand it takes time, but I simply don't have that amount.

The second project I have been working on is an MMO, which I hope to fund with the profits from the first game. I'm writing the story, characters.. I've developed a partial GDD for it for what I can answer..

Here's what the 7-lines short ad he referenced actually had to say about rev-share:

Quote

please note I will not consider rev-share compensation.

I'm sorry, what's that? but surely... you must be ok with rev-share right?

Therefore, I went ahead and replied:

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Hi,

Not sure what you're suggesting here to be honest. If we're talking rev-share, I think I've made that clear from the get go: It may be a hobby to you, but this is how I feed my 3 kids (daily, not in a few months' time).

"I understand it takes time, but I simply don't have that amount."
If you have the time to do it, then why not try your hand at doing it yourself? It's not unrealistic, and there are a lot of indie projects being released, some of which do get an actual following.

Surely, the prospect of 6+ months working 3+ hours every evening (weekends included) "pro-bono" may look daunting, but this is essentially what you're asking for here, isn't it?

I'm not trying to be insulting, but you did reply knowingly that rev-share was not something I'd consider, so I imagine it's fair for me to say why that's not a model that works for me.

If I misread your intentions, please enlighten me, otherwise, best of luck.

I'm not seeking validation here and though I feel that reopening the whole 'biz vs hobby' discussion is pointless, I'm actually interested in finding strategies to avoid having to get that sort of mail which, frankly, is kind of insulting when you consider what they're saying:

I don't have 10k to spend, and I'm not going to bother to do anything about this, but here's a cool idea, you get to make it and maybe we split it 50/50.

I mean, how much more of that crap can a man take?

And, where are these people taking this idea from? I remember being green and wanting to make a rev-share game more than once (heck, if you look hard enough, you'll likely find a few of these posts on here!), but I don't recall going straight to people who did this for a living and asking them to do it for rev-share because I didn't have 10k on me...

I made it my business' mission to help out aspiring entrepreneurs and indies so that fresh games would get made, so I'm DEFINITELY NOT AGAINST people trying to make it out there.

Hopefully that doesn't stir some PR mess... I had to get it out of my system, and if anyone wishes to contribute constructively, I'm all ears.

I'm missing something. You started your own company, but somehow people with their rev-share schemes are a problem for you?

You mean people keep asking you to make their ideas for them, and don't have money to pay you? Is that the problem? Just say no. You don't owe an explanation to people who ask you to do that (if that's what you're saying). 

It's common to everyone who makes games or works on games. These people fail to realize that living costs money.

It's safe to ignore them. Helping them will cost you more than you will make; that isn't good for business.

Hope you don't mind my feedback being an industry bystander.  I can see how people with ideas for games dupe themselves into thinking their idea has real potential to earn money.  I'm one of them, .  But then I'm left wondering what sort of individual is going to be serious about making a game that he or she doesn't have the resources to back sufficiently?  I imagine those sort of folk well out number the more realistic bunch who are willing to spend money on their own ideas.

21 hours ago, Tom Sloper said:

I'm missing something. You started your own company, but somehow people with their rev-share schemes are a problem for you?

You mean people keep asking you to make their ideas for them, and don't have money to pay you? Is that the problem? Just say no. You don't owe an explanation to people who ask you to do that (if that's what you're saying). 

That's correct. And since my business does part-time work-for-hire, it's hard to articulate an ad that:

A - Doesn't entirely repulse potential clients

AND

B - Avoids tons of people asking for a rev-share or deferred payment compensation strategy

In the past, I've tried being 'clearer', but that's when I'd yield much fewer prospects, and I found that the best clients did not respond positively to an ad that focused so much on the concept of compensation (largely because it was a 'given' to them, I hypothesized).

So being a bit less direct (I did specify I'm not into rev-share, but somehow that appears to make it open bar for deferred payment it seems) is a problem too.

The thing is, it is not uncommon for people to present themselves without mentioning this, so I still spend a lot of time doing back and forth before the compensation discussion happens, and I find it is typically bad practice to bring up compensation too early with actual clients because 1 - I'm actually quite negotiable, and 2 - if the relationship isn't established, it feels awkward and they're likely to 'think it over'. So even a polite no only happens after several back and forth most of the time, which I still can't reason why people would do this, but we're not just talking isolated incidents here.

And I agree, I don't owe an explanation, I figured I'd reply this one time, and probably paste that into our blog so people know once stance on this (and I can send them the URL the next time anybody asks). I'm not trying to be a serial asshole here, and I understand the concept of sales comes with a lot of deals that fall-out, but that approach just feels problematic and I know I'm not the only one enduring this (it is kind of a running gag here, and I can only assume it is also elsewhere).

19 hours ago, Scouting Ninja said:

It's common to everyone who makes games or works on games. These people fail to realize that living costs money.

It's safe to ignore them. Helping them will cost you more than you will make; that isn't good for business.

 

Well here's the thing, I'm not opposed to what they're doing in principle, and ignoring people isn't what I'm trying to achieve. My actual target clients aren't that far-off from this, except they've decided to dedicate some kind of a budget to their production efforts, and I can only presume that, not too long ago, they were on the other side of that fence, before realizing that rev-share and deferred payment are very unlikely to turn up anything good let alone finished.

So I'm not looking for a way to tell them all to 'fuck-off' (although that'd save me a lot of time trying to figure out whether they're just hiding their true intentions to go for rev-share only), but I'm just trying to find the origin of that problem and potential solutions. 

And there's no denying that after several hundreds (maybe thousands by now?) of such discussions, it takes its toll, and it gets harder and harder to ignore the implied insult, even though it may be inherently be just pure ignorance.

15 hours ago, Awoken said:

Hope you don't mind my feedback being an industry bystander.  I can see how people with ideas for games dupe themselves into thinking their idea has real potential to earn money.  I'm one of them, .  But then I'm left wondering what sort of individual is going to be serious about making a game that he or she doesn't have the resources to back sufficiently?  I imagine those sort of folk well out number the more realistic bunch who are willing to spend money on their own ideas.

It's probably a maturity process. I think people need to go certain phases to realize that it's hard to make games, that it makes sense to ask for money, and that though game jams can be made under 48 hours, a MMO simply cannot. When I was green myself, lurking these forums way-back-when, I can distinctly remember that people were going through these phases even then, which means this isn't new (not just an 'indie-bubble' thing). And I think it makes sense that newcomers have a lot of hopes, and that the few that survive these hopes getting crushed repeatedly end up actually making games, but even knowing this still doesn't come close to making it right.

Eh, I might just be getting too old, but thanks for 'hearing me out'.

19 hours ago, Orymus3 said:

So being a bit less direct (I did specify I'm not into rev-share, but somehow that appears to make it open bar for deferred payment it seems) is a problem too.

Yes, language purists always find a way around any wording that seems to exclude their wants and needs. Just say in your ad that you don't work on projects on a rev-share or deferred payment basis, and then change the wording whenever a caller shows you how your existing wording isn't getting the point across.

19 hours ago, Orymus3 said:

it is not uncommon for people to present themselves without mentioning this, so I still spend a lot of time doing back and forth before the compensation discussion happens

To avoid wasting time on idea guys with no money, I apologize to the caller but bring up the topic myself early on. Something like, "before we go much farther into this conversation, I need to make sure you're not talking about rev-share, or some other sort of deferred payment mechanism." If the caller prevaricates, maybe add some clarifying wording like, "We work for clients who pay for milestones upon acceptance."  Professionals who are prepared to deal with you in the standard professional way will understand why you ask, and will put the idea to rest. Idea guys with no money will keep trying to weasel and twist their way out of that question to try to sell you on the awesomeness of their ideas. Politely tell them you can't help them, wish them well, and end the call.  I wrote about this in my FAQ 43.

19 hours ago, Orymus3 said:

it gets harder and harder to ignore the implied insult

What insult? 

42 minutes ago, Tom Sloper said:

What insult? 

Well, I find it insulting when, in the end, throughout the discussion, the very reason they want me to do it 'for free' is because they wouldn't want to do it, and somehow think it's ok to ask me to. I mean, in essence, they're valuing their time as something inherently more important than mine to make this kind of assessment, and that's annoying at best.

Thanks for the feedback Tom, as per usual!

On 2/24/2018 at 9:30 PM, Orymus3 said:

I'm not opposed to what they're doing in principle

Then here is something to try:

Ask them for a very small upfront fee, it can be very-very small. If a person isn't even willing to pay a small upfront fee then it's a scam or they literally don't even have a bank account yet.

It's funny how people think game development is easy but they think math and programming is difficult.

4 hours ago, Scouting Ninja said:

Then here is something to try:

Ask them for a very small upfront fee, it can be very-very small. If a person isn't even willing to pay a small upfront fee then it's a scam or they literally don't even have a bank account yet.

 

It's funny how people think game development is easy but they think math and programming is difficult.

Yeah, and that's my business approach too, but typically, this falls down to a few replies down the line while considering the work.

But agreed,

Someone else online once said that 50% of $0 is still $0 and I took that idea to heart. Anytime someone says they'll offer rev-share, prepare to never get paid. It's particularly dangerous to agree to a rev-share agreement because the project "owner" has no stake in the project -- They spent minimal time, effort and money getting the project started, so they have no skin in the game and that makes it really, really easy for them to abandon the project or ghost you.  The other problem with revshare is that few of those agreements specify how long you have to work on the project before you get it, and they also don't specify what happens if you leave the project after a year but three years later it launches. The other problem is that if you do rev share, you need to be able to access the financials so that you can see how much the project nets per quarter so that you can take your share. If this information is being hidden from you, someone can just tell you lower numbers or no numbers and pocket 100%.

These are the same broke people who will tell artists that they'll get "good exposure".  When I do contract work, I usually take a down payment. If they hem and haw on that, they're not the type of people you want to spend time working for. I try to figure out who these people are as fast as possible and avoid wasting my precious time on them. It's an opportunity cost as well. Every hour you spend dealing with $0 people are hours you're not spending with people who will happily pay you.